


A Game of Happy Families: Round 3 ~ Harry's story

by Leela



Series: A Game of Happy Families [3]
Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: HP: Epilogue Compliant, M/M, Multi, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-19
Updated: 2010-03-19
Packaged: 2017-10-08 03:44:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/72358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leela/pseuds/Leela
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>Lily's still so innocent, raised with love, cherished by her parents and her brothers, her grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. The wrong move here could destroy that.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	A Game of Happy Families: Round 3 ~ Harry's story

**Author's Note:**

> A Game of Happy Families is a series of thematically-connected stories set in the same storyverse. Each story can be read independently or in series order.
> 
> **Betas**: Shoshanna, who-la-hoop, Minxie, Flic, and batdina.

"One, two, three, four," I count aloud, watching my pewter car rev its engine and speed along the game board from Knockturn Alley to platform nine and three-quarters. Happily, this time around, the charms on the board work the way I intended: a train whistle blows, a burst of steam spouts upward, and then an opaque and colourful replica of the Hogwarts train hovers in the air above my car on its new game square.

"Oh, oh," Lily crows. "That's mine and that means you have to pay me money, right? You owe me," she cranes her head to peer at the square, "25 galleons."

She snatches the imitation coins out of my hand — her fingernails almost taking a layer of skin with them — and adds them to the carefully stacked piles on her side of the board. A frown and a wrinkle of her nose give away her thoughts as she compares her stash to my careless heap. "You know, Dad, you really should take better care of your money. How am I supposed to know who's winning if I can't see how much you have?"

"From the mouths of babes, Harry," Draco says from under the rose-covered bower of our gazebo, where he's spending this warm Friday afternoon lounging like the Queen of Sheba.

I'm sitting on the grass just in front of the gazebo and have to twist my head around to see him. The expression on his face promises yet another lecture on how to manage my Gringotts vaults. I suppress a smile, knowing that this one will end up just like all the others, with Draco sighing in exaggerated disbelief at my supposed ignorance and doing the quarterlies for me.

"Mmm... a babe, that's me." Lily giggles and strikes a pose that I recognise from the cover of the latest Teen Witch.

Draco blows her a kiss "Simply gorgeous, darling."

She blows him a kiss back, then smirks at me. I sigh, and she arches an eyebrow.

"It's part of Slytherin 101, right?" I suppress a grin at their matching looks of confusion — it isn't often I get even half a one over on any of my Slytherins. "All those identical expressions that begin with S: smirk, sneer, and scowl. They might come with the Malfoy and Prince genes, but Al and Lily didn't start using them until after they were sorted into Slytherin."

I roll my eyes when Lily and Draco exchange amused looks. The words Stupid Gryffindor hang in the warm, flower-scented air.

"My turn now." A flick of her wand sends the die tumbling. White, fluffy feet pop out from under her game piece. Then the top hat rises in the air until it's perched between the floppy ears of a ghostly rabbit that hops from square to square and stops on Queen Charlotte Place, where she already has two houses.

Even as I'm watching the board, the corner of my brain that never stops paying attention to my surroundings notes that Draco is putting his book aside and getting up.

Lily hums and examines the board. Apparently satisfied, she selects some galleons from her bank and plunks them next to her top hat. "_Deversorius_," she announces.

I hold my breath, but I needn't have worried. All that work to figure out how to activate the built-in charm without a wand actually pays off, and the magic in the board activates. A ka-ching sounds. The galleons and houses swirl together and melt into the square. Then an old-fashioned hotel pops into place, complete with miniature flags flying from the turrets.

"You did it." Lily claps her hands.

A shadow is cast over my shoulder, and Draco murmurs "nicely done, Harry," in my ear, sending a warning shiver down my spine.

I control my defensive instincts long enough to turn my head and, squinting against the sun, look up at him. He's crouching behind me, leaning over my shoulder. The sun-block charm shimmers around him like a full-body halo. After our eyes meet, he places a hand on my shoulder. Neither Draco nor Severus has ever made the mistake of touching me without first making sure I know they're there. Between the war and a couple of decades as an Auror, my reflexes are never going to slow down enough to make that a safe move. I start to raise my head, so I can kiss him.

And then the git spoils the mood by smirking at me. "If you ever finish it, you might actually be able to sell this one. Unlike the... what did you call it?"

"I thought we were never going to bring that up again?" I snarl. Who could have foreseen how completely wrong a charmed game of Twister could go? Besides, no-one was permanently hurt.

"Don't be silly, Dad. Where's the fun in that?" Lily snickers, then yelps and dives out of the way of an old barn owl. "Incoming."

"Wha—" is all Draco has time to get out before the post owl skims over his head and crash-lands in the middle of the Monopoly board. Luckily, the protective spells hold up against the onslaught and the game pieces remain in place. I tick another item off my mental checklist while Lily detaches the scroll from the bird's leg.

"It's for you, Dad." Lily hands me the message and focuses on the owl, which looks like most of the other owls that sit on the shelves in a post office.

I glance at the return address on the outside: 4 Privet Drive. I hate that house. Just seeing the address brings back the bad memories. Not just the way I was treated by my so-called family, but the rest as well. It's all so tied up with Voldemort and the rest of the insanity that was my childhood; I clench my fist not to scrub at the scar on my forehead.

When the memories are in their proper place again, I glance at Lily to make sure she's busy. I've worked hard at keeping my kids' lives as free from that shite as possible. But she's only got eyes for the owl that's taken up position on her bent knees. As always, the owl has calmed down beneath her touch, feathers quivering and then lying flat. She's hand-feeding the greedy bird bits of ham from one of the sandwiches left over from lunch.

Picking up my wand, I cast a surreptitious protection and cushioning charm to protect her skin and then, unable to put it off any longer, I turn to my letter.

Draco has settled on the grass beside me. I know he's seen the address when he asks, "Trouble?"

"Hope not," I say. Picking off the sellotape gives me a moment's reprieve. I scan the neatly penned words and then lean into Draco. My hand and the letter drop into my lap.

"Talk to me, Harry." Draco flicks a corner of the letter with his finger, but doesn't attempt to read it.

I keep my voice too low for Lily to hear. "It's mostly a thank-you letter. With the money I sent them, Kath and Dudley have found a place for the bastard. They're so desperate to get rid of him..." I shake my head, unable to complete the thought, and force myself to scan down the page.

Draco doesn't say a word. He just slides an arm around my waist and draws me closer.

"They're selling the house as soon as he's gone." The relief almost overwhelms everything else. If I never see the words 'Privet Drive' again, it'll be too soon. "There's a bit about their kids. They're keeping an eye out, but no magic so far."

A snort of disbelief escapes me at the last paragraph. "Can you believe it? They want me to visit after they move, bring the kids along so they can meet their cousins."

I drop the letter from a trembling hand. At least Dudley had the sense not to suggest I bring my children to that house.

"You didn't think he'd let you just walk away again after everything, did you?" Draco murmurs into my ear.

"Guess not, the way he's insisted on keeping in touch ever since we had that talk." I'm still staring at the letter, which is curled like a fat, white worm on the grass. "You know, Dudley didn't even try to make me feel bad for not realising what his Aunt Marge had been doing to him all those years. Just told me that he was sorry for taking it out on me, because the two of us might have been able to stop it all if we'd worked together."

"I don't think any of us could see beyond our own problems back then. As for the rest—" Draco shrugs "—he's family."

"Who's family?" Lily asks from where she's knelt in front of me, flattening out the letter and frowning. "And why do this Pet and Tommy know about me if I don't know about them?"

I snatch the letter away from her. "Just... just some people I know."

"Well enough to help them out yourself instead of sending them to the foundation, apparently, which means..." Lily pulls her bottom lip between her teeth and chews on it briefly, then looks up at me with that look in her eyes that means she's worked it all out. "You know, you've only ever mentioned one Dudley. That's the cousin you lived with when you were a kid, right?"

"Right," I say and fold up the letter — something I should have done right away. I scramble mentally for a minute, trying to come up with something to distract her. No one's worse than Lily when she's got her mind made up to do something. "What about that Monopoly game?"

"Great way to change the subject, Dad. Very subtle," she says, giving me another of her Slytherin smirks — this time complete with the raised eyebrow that means I'm not getting away with anything. "So, if Dudley's your cousin, then I'm assuming this Kath is his wife, which would make Pet and Tommy my...." She looks at Draco expectantly.

"Second cousins," he answers.

"And they're not Weasleys," she says. "Brilliant."

*

"Just try not to damage yourselves or the locals, all right?" I grin carefully at Al and Scorpius, not wanting to get a mouthful of ash like I did during last Saturday's call. Snorting with laughter is a bad idea when you've got your head stuck in a Floo.

"We promise, Dad. The Alps will still be standing when we leave for Italy tomorrow." Al has that long-suffering look on his face that means he's doing his best not to roll his eyes at me. He glances over his shoulder and his impish grin returns — the one that makes that line between my eyebrows deepen. "Hans is here to take us hiking. Talk to you next Saturday. Bye." And he's gone.

"They'll be fine, Harry, and so will Switzerland." Draco is leaning against the counter, floating plates, knives and forks from the cupboards and drawers to the kitchen table. "After all, it survived the year Blaise and I spent there on holiday after leaving Hogwarts."

"That's not very reassuring, is it?" Even I'd heard stories about that holiday, and I was avoiding pretty much every possible form of communication back then.

Draco doesn't even have the decency to look uncomfortable underneath his smirk. "Think of it this way. There's nothing they can do that hasn't already been at least tried by their betters."

"Draco," I whine, stretching out the last vowel. "Not helping."

He just grins at me and comes over to ruffle my hair. I tug on his plait in return. Then his fingers are yanking on my hair, and I've got his plait wrapped around one hand.

"Children!" Severus limps into the kitchen.

"You wish," Draco mutters, but he lets go of my hair just enough to turn the movement into a caress. I bring his hair to my lips with a flourish and then release it.

"Not even in my worst nightmares," Severus sneers, but allows us to draw him into our arms.

Usually, the tension slides away when I relax into my lovers' embrace, but not this afternoon. There's a thought itching at the back of my mind. I'm in the middle of kissing Severus when I finally work it out. The house feels too empty without teenagers or house elves. Kreacher and Winky are at Ginny's place this week, helping out with the new baby. And—

"Harry?" Severus asks when I abruptly pull away and start pacing around the kitchen.

"Lily," I say, opening the oven door and bending down to stare at the pan full of roasting chicken and vegetables. "Have either of you seen her today?"

Draco frowns. "Not since breakfast."

The wooden click of Severus' cane against the table startles me into releasing the oven door, which springs closed with a clang. With a glare at me, he drops heavily into a chair. "She informed _me_ that she was spending the day with Ginevra."

Thing is, Ginny bagged the next two weeks as a teenager-free zone. Lily knows that I know this. She also knows that Severus and Draco would have filed the information under _stuff that's Harry's business_ — or whatever they call that category — and promptly allowed it to slip from their minds.

Memories swirl tightly through my chest. Those long, painful years after James, and then Al, were born. Ginny and I spent most of that time in a constant state of high alert. Some weeks it seemed as if every other tip that came into the office was about another group planning to kidnap one or both of our kids and hold them for money, for the release of Death Eaters from Azkaban, or some impossible deed that they wanted me to force the Ministry to accomplish.

"Don't go there, Harry. It's not a threat this time," Severus tells me in a tone that accepts no denial. "She's arranged this herself."

"That devious little snake." Draco sounds almost proud.

The memories fly apart; the sudden unwinding leaves me almost light-headed. The pressure on my chest releases so abruptly that I end up coughing, unable to force enough air out to draw more in.

Draco moves closer and strokes a hand up and down between my shoulder blades, the rhythm somehow helping me to get my breathing back under control. In the background, Severus is talking. I can't understand the words, but that doesn't really matter. His familiar rasping croak brings me to earth in ways that Professor Snape's silken-steel voice never could.

Unsure when I squeezed my eyes shut, I open them. Severus is standing in front of me, Draco next to me. Somewhere in the middle of my remembered panic and my struggle to put aside the past in favour of the present, I figure it out.

"I know where she's gone," I announce. They both remain silent, waiting for me to continue. If they know the answer, they're not going to break this moment for me. "She's gone to Privet Drive and, when I find her, I'm going to kill her. There's got to be a way to kiss or hug someone to death."

Being wise men, Severus and Draco simply exchange a telling glance. Severus shoves me out of the way to get our dinner out of the oven and Draco starts making tea. I, being almost as wise, stomp off upstairs to see if Lily bothered to leave a message.

She did, of course, not being a girl to leave anything to chance. The folded parchment is placed dead centre on her pillow. _Dad_ is scrawled on the front in acid-green ink.

*

Ron is in the sitting room when I come back down, her letter crumpled in my hand. He's settled in a chair with a cup of tea.

Before I can so much as open my mouth, Severus is there. "Ronald agreed to come over and watch the house while we're gone." He gives me one of _those_ looks, the kind that tells me to shut up and accept it — the same look that I'm getting from Ron and Draco.

The words _just in case_ are so heavily implied he might as well have said them aloud, but I'm not going to argue. The last thing I want is to have Lily coming back from _that place_ and finding an empty home.

"You look like shite, mate." Ron raises his mug.

"Yeah, well, you try raising a Slytherin daughter."

"Nah. Having a Ravenclaw's bad enough. Between Rose and Hermione, Hugo and I can hardly get a word in edgeways." He looks thoughtful for a minute then grins. "It can be brilliant, though. Ask a good question, and they go right off, spouting all kinds of rubbish. Then, while they're looking stuff up in books, Hugo and I can listen to a bit of Quidditch on the radio without any interruptions."

Severus snorts and mutters something under his breath. I can't hear him, but I'm sure it's something along the lines of 'imbecile'. Or maybe 'Neanderthal'; he's become very fond of that word lately.

Draco makes that odd face that he always does when Ron's being particularly... well, Ronnish, for want of a better word, then asks, "You found a note?"

"Yeah. I was right. She's off to Dudley's."

"Dursley?" Ron asks, looking as if he's swallowed something nasty.

"Lily was in the back garden a couple of weeks ago when I got a letter from Dudley and Kath, his wife. She asked me who they were, and why they knew about her if she didn't know about them."

Impatience licks at my heart, hot and hungry as Fiendfyre, just thinking about Lily in Little Whinging. Dudley's there, but I don't know how to depend on him. It's my job to keep my kids safe from that... from _him_. I've read up on Alzheimer's, but all I can remember is how nasty they can get. And Uncle Vernon wasn't a nice bloke when he was in his right mind. Hell, Dudley doesn't trust his father in the same house as his kids any more.

"Harry." There's a note of warning in Severus' voice, but even he knows I'm going to ignore it. Nothing he says could stem my rising panic.

I am such a fucking control freak. But knowing that has never stopped me from rushing in, from being unable to wait until I have all the facts. I have to _do_ something. Because if I don't...

Before anyone can say anything else, I announce, "It's only been about ten days since I got that letter, which means they're still at Privet Drive. And _he's_ there. With my Lily." On that almost unbearable thought, I yank my wand out of my pocket, step, spin, and then I'm gone.

*

The space between Number 4 and the house next door is more overgrown than I remember it being, but there's still enough room for me to Apparate without doing damage to myself or anything else. Even better, there's even less chance of being caught by the neighbours.

Lessons beaten into me thirty and more years earlier keep me walking instead of running. I try to focus on Dudley's voice. His confession on the day I abandoned this misbegotten piece of English soil, the knowledge that he didn't think I was a waste of space, still reverberates through me at odd times. But today, it's overwhelmed by Uncle Vernon's roar.

The brass number 4 on the door still shines in the sun, although the front garden is messier than it ever was when I looked after it. The lawn is overdue for watering and mowing, and a kid's bike lies abandoned near the front step. Before I realise what I'm doing, I've moved the bike off to the side of the house and propped it up against the shed. I would have opened the rusty padlock and put it inside, except that Uncle Vernon would kill me if I used my wand outside.

A harsh noise escapes me when I realise what I've done. Picking up Dudley's bike and moving it out of sight of the neighbours before Uncle Vernon sees it and goes mental on me. I can't believe that Dudley's kids don't tidy up after themselves, with his father in the house.

That reminder sends me racing back around to the front. My hand is half-raised to the doorbell when cracks of Apparition sound behind me. Without thinking, I turn around and confront the new arrivals. My hand's in my pocket, gripping my wand.

"Don't be more stupid than you can help," Draco drawls. His hair is hanging loose now, a protective veil around his face and shoulders. He's still wearing dark grey house robes that are only a couple of shades lighter than Severus' unrelievedly black ones.

_Freaks_, I can hear Uncle Vernon yell, feel that sound his fist makes when it hits something, and I react by snapping at Draco. "Then don't sneak up on me."

Severus snorts. "With the infernal racket it makes, Apparition hardly constitutes sneaking."

"Point," I admit and then frown at them. "You didn't have to come."

"Did you honestly think we would let you return to this," Draco surveys the house and the street and sneers, "_suburban nightmare_ without us?" He joins me on the step, with Severus one step below. "Surely, after all these years, you have a little more faith in us than that."

"Sorry," I mutter resentfully and poke at the doorbell to derail further discussion.

Kath opens the door. She's tall, curvy, and comfortable with light-brown hair, worn jeans, and an oversized Doctor Who t-shirt. "Harry," she says, sounding incredibly relieved as she grabs my hand. "We didn't know how to reach you without going to that owl post office place. Dudley was just looking up those friends of yours in the directory: the Wigglies, or was it the Weeleys?"

I ignore Draco's snicker and ask, "Lily's still here?"

"We're hardly going to send a teenage girl out on the streets by herself, especially when we can't make sure she gets home safely."

"And we appreciate that," Draco says and steps forward, hand outstretched, and introduces himself. "Draco Malfoy."

Still not completely sure whether I want to kiss or kill my daughter, I take advantage of the distraction and head for the living room.

*

The scene in the living room freezes me in place. The dark presence of my cupboard looms behind me, urging me to step forward, grab Lily, and yank her to the safety of _my_ arms. But I resist. She's still so innocent, raised with love, cherished by her parents and her brothers, her grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. The wrong move here could destroy that.

Uncle Vernon's bigger than I remember. Any muscle he once had is long since run to fat. His stomach spreads over the waist of his trousers and into his lap, and the buttons of his shirt strain and gap, revealing his white vest. Broken veins bloom across his clean-shaven face, a startling contrast with his white hair and eyebrows. He's in an armchair next to the gas fire, placed where he can see everything and everyone in the room. Where he's got Lily trapped.

He's got her on the arm of his chair. One of his hands holds her in place, keeps her head against one of his oversized shoulders. She's reading a book to him and the two chubby, blond-haired kids who are sitting wide-eyed on the rug. I can't tell if Pet and Tommy are afraid of him or enthralled with the story.

Neither Lily nor Uncle Vernon notices me standing there. She's reading _The Hobbit_. He's turning the pages. With the hand that isn't holding on to her. The odd smile on his face is unsettling.

Everything around me seems so much louder than the words Lily's reading. Draco's voice from the hall, where he's talking with Kath and Dudley, using that hissing cadence that means he's in full Malfoy 'protect the family' mode. Severus' trudge-thumping steps, as he moves to my side and grasps my shoulder. He intends this gesture to be warm and reassuring, to protect me from my cupboard and give me strength to stand and watch. To be a good father.

It almost works. But then Uncle Vernon shifts a little closer to Lily and I decide I'd rather kill him instead. How _dare_ he?

I shake off Severus' restraining hand and stride forward, clenching my hands into fists to hide how much they're shaking. When I stop, close enough to touch her, Pet and Tommy squeak and scramble past me. I grit out the words, my tone somewhere between a snarl and the hissing of Parseltongue. "Leave. Her. Alone."

"I'm all right." Lily is apologetic. Face flaming, she pushes her red hair off her face and nudges Uncle Vernon. "You know Grandpa Vernon, right?"

This time all I manage is a growl.

Uncle Vernon's eyes widen, and he seems to deflate into a rubbery ball. He withdraws from Lily and tries to squash himself into the far corner of the armchair. "I didn't do anything," he babbles urgently. "I swear, James. I said I wouldn't tease Lily again, and I didn't."

I'm raising my fist, barely listening to him, when Lily's voice cuts through the haze of my anger. "Dad," she says. "You're scaring him."

This time I look at him, actually hear what he's saying.

"We were just reading. Nothing more, I promise." He prods hesitantly at Lily, as if to push her towards me. "Tell him, Lily. Tell James that's all we were doing."

A protest spills out of me. "I'm not..."

Severus cuts me off. "James knows that, Vernon. We all do."

"You're a Snape." Uncle Vernon shakes his head, wobbling his jowls and chins, and looks from me to Severus and back again. "Severus isn't supposed to come over. Not any more. I didn't invite him over. I didn't."

I'm gobsmacked. I never thought I'd see the day when Uncle Vernon was scared of me. Then the realisation crashes into me. It's my father who frightens him. What's left of my uncle doesn't even know who I am.

"Say something," Severus whispers and pokes me.

"I believe you," I say, gritting the words out between clenched teeth. "Honest. It's fine." Except I've got this churning in my stomach telling me that it's not really fine. Knowing about the Alzheimer's didn't begin to prepare me for the diminished wreck in front of me, this man who can't tell the difference between past and present. There's no sign of the viciousness or random violence that the books mentioned, only the fear that seems to ooze out of his pores. The urge to throttle Uncle Vernon into telling me what he did to my Mum and what my Dad did to him, to scream at him until he remembers what he did to me, dissolves into a strange, terrible pity.

I stare at him, until Severus pokes me again. Unable to come up with anything better, I add, "We're all friends now."

"We are?" Uncle Vernon purses his fleshy lips. "Petunia didn't tell me that."

"Dad?" Lily looks up at me, wide-eyed with confusion.

I'll have to explain later, I think. But, then again, she's got a lot of explaining to do when we get home. I hold out my arms. "Lily, sweetheart, come here."

"Go to James." Uncle Vernon shoves her away. The book falls to the floor.

I keep an eye on him as I hug my fifteen year old, no-longer-little girl and as I let Severus take her out of the room. He curls up in that chair as best his bulk will allow, clutching the arms and holding his feet a few inches up off the carpet. I never imagined Uncle Vernon could look so small, so lost.

"It's hard to see him like that."

Kath's quiet comment startles me. Speechless, I turn to her.

"I know that he wasn't a nice man, and that he was even worse to you than Dudley and his mother," she continues, "but that doesn't make this any easier to watch. He was crying the other day, because he'd wet the bed and hadn't been able to fix it before I went in to get him up for the day."

Phrases from my reading flash through my mind. I start to ask, "Why you want him out of here, has he been—" but I can't finish the question.

Luckily, she understands and I don't have to fumble through an explanation. "He's confused all the time now. We can't watch him all the time or look after him properly. He needs full-time care, from people who know how to handle Alzheimer's patients, and a regular schedule. We can't give him that. Not with the kids and Dudley's work."

Her hand is warm on my bare forearm. "Why don't you go and take your daughter home? Let me get him to bed."

At the door, I glance back at them. She's kneeling on the floor next to his chair, and he's slowly uncurling. Maybe it's his expression, or the tentative, trembling hand that reaches towards her, but suddenly I'm sure of one thing. Uncle Vernon is dead, and this man needs my help.

*

The crack of our Apparition is still echoing around us when the back door opens and an unexpectedly large crowd spills out. Ginny and Viktor are at the front, followed by Ron and Hermione with Rose and Hugo, James and his wife Victoria, and then more Weasleys than I can count. Lucius and Narcissa follow more sedately, her raised eyebrow fairly oozing condemnation. She probably considered using Avada Kedavra on me when someone whom she doesn't consider family told her that Lily, her adopted granddaughter, had gone off into the Muggle world on her own.

I'm just considering what to say to Ron for spreading the word this way, when Lily yells at me.

"Dad?" Lily looks pointedly at her arms, which I am still clutching tightly.

"Sorry, sweetheart," I mutter and force myself to let go. I shove my hands into my pockets for something to do with them, and the fingers of my right hand brush up against the card Dudley pressed on me before we left. There's no way to avoid staying in touch now, I expect. And the thought doesn't horrify me the way it did two weeks earlier.

She smiles and raises herself onto her tiptoes to give me a kiss. "I'm sorry I scared you, Daddy," she whispers and then races off to join the rest of our family.

Two hours later, we're all recovering from eating far too much food, and she's sitting cross-legged at Lucius and Narcissa's feet, surrounded by her brother and cousins. James has an arm around her shoulders as she chatters a mile a minute to him and anyone else who'll listen about the Dursleys and Hobbits and the weird wonders of a Muggle house and fireplaces that don't have fires and can't ever be Floos.

I'm standing in the doorway of our sitting room watching when Ginny comes up behind me and asks, "All right, Harry?"

"I am now," I respond. "You?"

"I'm fine," she says. "But it wasn't my nightmare that Lily sauntered into. Have you thought about what to do about today's escapade?"

"I've mostly decided not to kill her." I twist my lips into a smile, hoping that she gets the humour as well as the seriousness behind my comment.

"I hear you—" she sighs "—but the consequences..."

"...are more than the fleeting sense of satisfaction is worth," I finish. "I know. It's just hard to figure out what's appropriate here. She can't get away with thinking that it's all right to sneak off and lie about it."

"We don't have to decide tonight. Why don't we sleep on it and talk tomorrow? Tonight, I think we both need to relax and enjoy the fact that this time it wasn't anything serious." She pats me on the cheek and goes to join Viktor and their two sons, as far away as she can get from Lucius and Narcissa.

She's so bloody sensible. Sometimes I wonder how she put up with me and our marriage-in-name-only for all those years.

Severus and Draco shift over and make room for me to sit between them on the couch. They don't say anything; just make sure that we're touching. Severus lays his hand on my thigh. Draco rests his head on my shoulder and wriggles until my arm is around him. And finally, something gives way in my chest and I feel as if I can relax.

~fin~


End file.
